Aadi Salman shares his experience developing major characters for top gaming titles, writes Nur Zarina Othman
MALAYSIA’S comics industry has been around for decades and we are not short of talents. One of these is Aadi Salman, 39, from Cheras who goes by the pen name Adijin.
However, not many know that the comic books artist, whose work has been published in Urban Comics and Komikoo, is the very same person responsible for conceptualising characters in two illustrious international gaming franchises — Far Cry 4 and Watchdogs 2.
A HUMBLE BEGINNING
Aadi’s passion for drawing started when he was very young. He was just 19 when he completed his experimental comic anthology titled Siapa? which was published by Urban Comics in 2001 at the peak of the local comics scene.
Featuring a unique comics presentation of mixed media, Urban Comics featured seven local comic book talents, one of whom was Aadi. At a time when Malaysia’s comics scene was dominated by humour, romance and the anime genre, Aadi’s style swayed towards more serious storytelling such as sci-fi, action and mystery.
Sadly, his stint at Urban Comics was cut short as the latter called it quits in December 2002. However, the young comics artist and author did not give up. In 2008, Aadi made a comeback with a new comics series, featuring different styles of comic book writing, with Komikoo. But this collaboration too concluded only after a few publications due to some issues faced by its owner.
However, just before Komikoo closed down, Aadi had already started contributing his artwork to an international creative services studio based in Canada.
THE BIG MOVE
In 2009, he decided to stop working from home when Volta — the studio he had been freelancing with — offered him a permanent position as concept artist in Quebec, Canada.
“It was exciting and scary at the same time,” says Aadi as he recalls the time when he received the job offer. “But it was for a job I liked and I wanted it so much.”
He spent about five years at Volta before he got his dream job as a concept artist in one of the world’s largest video game companies, Ubisoft, in Montreal. As Aadi’s career progressed, his personal life flourished too; Aadi tied the knot with a Malaysian designer from Johor who later joined him in Montreal as he began a career with Ubisoft.
HIS FAVOURITE
As a concept artist, Aadi’s job is to bring characters to life. “It’s challenging,” he says. He recalls that for one of the main characters in a game, it took him six months to complete it.
On top of his main responsibility of bringing the characters to life, Aadi also designs “character-props” for the project he’s entrusted with or for projects handled by other artists. His first project with the company was Far Cry 4, a first-person shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal. The game is the successor to 2012’s Far Cry 3, and the fourth instalment in the Far Cry series.
In 2014, the franchise was announced as the fastest-selling title published by Ubisoft but Aadi wasn’t aware of it. “I don’t really know the details about the game I’m working on. In fact, I have never played the two video games I worked on. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen how the characters looked in the game. They look good, but I’ve never played the game,” adds Aadi, who believes that this keeps him in perspective.
Another reason is because he doesn’t want the characters he designs to be influenced by what he wants them to be rather than what they should be if he has to work on a different game in the same franchise. After Far Cry 4, Aadi worked on Watchdogs 2.
What is his favourite character thus far? “I like all the characters,” he says. “How can I not since I was the one who conceptualised these characters? But Sitara Dhawan is my favourite.” Sitara is the main character in Watchdogs 2, a contract hacker in this third-person view action-adventure game set in San Francisco Bay. It was released in November 2016.
FIRST LOVE
In August 2016, an old friend, a fellow comics artist Fairul Nizam “Roy” Ablah and his partner Amir Hafizi, who had just started a comics house called Maple Comics (pronounced as Map-ley), approached Aadi for a comics novel project.
Soon after Aadi agreed to the offer, he was diagnosed with intracranial haemorrhage and viral myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle). Due to this, he was hospitalised for more than a month.
Aadi’s desire to recover was fierce. Just six months after his neurosurgery, he was back at the drawing board, making full use of his medical leave to work on Siapa? and finished it in time for the Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair in April of this year.
“I had an amazing support system at home and at the hospital too which helped tremendously with my recovery. I started working on my drawings and comics as soon as I could. Putting both my brain and motor skills to work definitely sped up the rehabilitation process,” he says.
Despite leaving comics drawing for more than a decade, Aadi still had all his skills. He used his recuperating time to complete the work.
Working on comics from Montreal was a bit challenging for Aadi. Getting the right setting for the comics held up the production as he had to dig up old photographs and scour his memory of what Kuala Lumpur looked like, as he used the city as the setting for Siapa?
“Some of the places may no longer look like how I drew them in my comics but it used to look like that and I remember each location clearly. These places exist,” says Aadi as he flips through the pages of Siapa?
Siapa? tells about friendship using a black and white storytelling concept. It is a sequel to his earlier published comics with the same title in Urban Comics in 2001.
MANUAL VS DIGITAL
Aadi says advancements in technology have enabled artists to work faster. “Imagine if I have to make changes to the gaming characters without my drawing tablet, it will take not six months but six years,” he says jokingly.
However, that’s for the development of gaming characters, but for Siapa? Aadi says he likes manual sketching and drawing, working with pencil and paper.
“Some might say that I’m regressing, but I feel it is more organic to work with paper and pencil. I become more aware of the surroundings and it makes me pay attention to details more. I still use the drawing tablet for my main work, it makes my job simpler. The tablet is good for details with my characters as I can zoom in and out while working on them.
“They are two different methods and I’m very happy to be able to apply both,” says Aadi.
Currently waiting for his next project assignment, Aadi spends his time playing with his 4-year-old daughter. He is also waiting for the arrival of his second child soon. At the same time, he’s doing promotional work for Siapa? on his social media platforms.
“I am not much of a gamer, but I’m fortunate to have a passion where I can see people enjoying my work, both in the gaming and comics industry, and this makes me very happy.”